Oilers beat Caps 2-1, biggest win since when?

[Event Summary]

[NHL.com] [Cult of Hockey]

The Washington Capitals have been surging, jumping out to a 7-0-0 start this season. Last night I think the Oil grew up a bit. Look at the sheer joy and passion on the face of Taylor Hall, as he scores his 50th NHL point on a beautiful goal. The video is below. 

It's almost as if Hall's look is part joy, disbelief, happiness, and 'holy shit can you even believe we're here doing this right now against an undefeated Alex Ovechkin-led team?!?!'

It's absolutely astounding to me how much fun these Oilers are to watch. They're now 5-2-2 on the season and they're tied for first place with the Colorado Avalanche--whom they play tonight. I don't expect first place play to continue, partly because I don't think the Oilers get the type of goal-tending they're getting right now all season long. But you ride it for as long as it lasts and accumulate as many points as possible. Right now, the Oil are a good home team who are a tough out every night because of the energy the young kids like Hall, Jordan Eberle (each with goals last night, Eberle adding an assist to go with his GW Goal), and Nugent-Hopkins. Those guys are here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Save by save (34 times to be exact), Nik Khabibulin put another brick in the wall. How long can he keep this up? I do think to a degree with Bulin cools off, Devin Dubnyk will be there to pick him up a little bit. And surprise goal-tending was a reason I thought the Oilers could slip into the playoffs this year.

The great thing about this team is they are arriving ahead of schedule and doing it under the radar because no one in the NHL saw this happening.



All this hoopla and excitement happens the same night that the Winnipeg Jets beat the Philadelphia Flyers 9-8. Since it was a record setting game, here's the event summary of that beauty.

Watch video of the 17 goal game here.

Or just check this out:

Oilers can't close out Wild, lose 2-1 in shootout

[Event Summary]
[Cult of Hockey]

Second game in a row that I went to sleep with the Oilers leading 1-0 heading into the third period and at the end of the game, the Oilers found a way to lose instead of close it out for the win. They fall to 2-2-2 on the season with six points tallied. They should be a lot better off than that.

From NHL.com:

The Oilers were two seconds away from a 1-0 shutout before Minnesota's Dany Heatley beat Nikolai Khabibulin with 1.2 seconds left in regulation. After a scoreless overtime, Matt Cullen scored the only goal of the shootout, giving the Wild a 2-1 win that stunned the full house of 16,839 at Rexall Place


Jordan Eberle's and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins' efforts were stopped in the shootout before Eric Belanger hit the post to end the game. Cullen, Minnesota's first shooter in the tiebreaker, came in slowly before whipping a backhander under the crossbar on the Wild's first try.

 Ugh.

The Bulin Wall's 30 saves were not enough because he didn't make the final save of the game. That's why Hockey is so painful yet so intriguing at the same time. I would think that 99.9% of fans watching this game had the Oilers going off as a winner last night. And it didn't happen. And until the Oilers learn to close and score one more goal that makes the other team quit on the night this is going to keep happening.

My playoff predictions may have been premature.